VR Insight Flight Master Yoke

[BrassEm 0]

 

 

Thx a lot for that info (better late than never :-), no problem!)

 

Maybe just as well! I hope the price is right for the goflight yoke. Having full sets of switches on the joke really does help.

 

(Thanks for posting the link.)

[KJConlon 17]

I received an email blast this morning and the GF yoke is $750. This places inline with PFC products- specifically the Saab yoke. GF has some really nice features the PFC doesn't (hat and thumb mouse?) but I'd like to see a review or 2 before I plunk down that kind of money.

 

 

-.- . ...- .. -.

Kevin Conlon

Parrot Head and PP-SEL

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD

 

[777simmer 117]

I was afraid of that :-(

Even though it is not 1200$ it is still to much for me.

 

The VR for 370€ Is the absolute most I could see me spending for a yoke.

 

The CH Produkts Eclipse does not look great, but it does have a lot of functions.

I have a 20 year old CH Produkts yoke (analog one, connected to an analog to USB converter) that still works.

If the Eclipse is the same quality, it will last for many years for 180€

[sdilu 0]

Some thoughts about Yokes. I own the older CH yoke and the Cessna Yoke from Saitek. But as I go to FS Conventions nearly every year (Aerosoft FS Konferenz, FS Weekend in Lelystad and ILM near Luzern) I had the oportunity to try the Elite Yoke, the PFC Beach Yoke, several full size colonn replicas of Boeing 737 yokes as well as the traditional Saitek Yoke.

I also want to mention that I'm a real world private pilote flying several Cessna and Piper GA aircraft. I mention all this not to make myself feel important, but just to give you my perspective over the topic. The first difference I noticed when I had my first lesson in a real aircraft was the much much wider travel a real aircraft yoke has over our flight sim yokes. This is true for elevator travel but also for ruder travel. This is why I feel that I can pilot real world airplanes much more precisely than thos in the sim.

The standard Saitek has very short travel ways but Saitek has made a big improvement with their Cessna yoke which has a aileron travel which comes close to that from the real airplane. But I was most disapointed by the high end yokes from PFC, Elite as from the new GoFlight yoke. All those feel very study and smooth on the movement, but travel ways from the yoke in each direction are so awfull short that they all are no go for me. I'm especially disapointed by the GoFlight as it was on my wish list before I tried it, but the aileron travel is extremely short (the Saitek Cessna yoke is way better)! Here it is now where I want to come back to the VR yoke, not only it felt realistic in smoothness but the travel in each direction is far better than all the premium guys (PFC, Elite, GoFlight). Steve, own of the three owner from VR comes nearly each year to the convention in Lelystad (the largest in the world by far with thousands of visitors coming from all continents) as the one from Aerosoft and he told me that they are thinking about releasing an updated verion of their yoke with a few integrated buttons.

As I'm always trying to enhance my flightsim experience, I just ordered the new Iris force feedback yoke which will be delivered from may on (http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/irisdynamics/affordable-force-feedback-flight-sim-control-yoke). I will report back on it as soon as I will get it.

If you are very tight on budget then I would recommend the CH Elite (not to be confounded with the yoke from the manufacterer Elite!). The CH Elite feels better than the original CH yoke I own, I guess they used a stronger plastic shaft and it's loaded with buttons and wheels. When you learn to fly real GA airplanes, you will soon learn how important it is to correctly trim an airplane and the CH yoke delivers all this from the start. It just looks more than a toy compared to others, but if you don't bother about that, it's unbeatable value when you consider that even kind of pedals are included. The Cessna Yoke from Saitek is also a good piece of equipment, the Saitek throttles are very nice with a wide travel enabling you to precisely command engine power, but you need to invest more money in pedals, trim wheel and so on. The VR yoke is the next best thing if money has less relevance for you because it's the most realistic yoke for general aviation I did try. As for it's price, I can barely fly 2 hours with a real Cessna 172 for the price it does cost. In fact it's a real bargain when you look at it's build quality. But I agree that 379 € plus shipping cost will represent a lot of money for a lot of people, but worth every cent in my opinion.

[777simmer 117]

Yes that Iris things looks really nice.

Thx for your thoughts on the various yokes!

 

I am looking fwd to a review on the Iris.

 

The VR insight is high on my list.

The thing is, it does not have any switches!

 

I am still hoping someone here would modify it, add some switches, and let us know how difficult that was.

 

the least I would want are:

- up down elevator trim swtich

- pan view hat switch

- Autopilot disconnect switch

(Additionally, but not an absolute requirement, a switch to link Auto Throttle disconnect to, and two switches for TrackIR Pause/unpause (F9) and view reset ((F12).

[Jessica Bannister-Pearce 120]

I've just finished reviewing the VR insight yoke for PC pilot. Can't say I loved it. On the one hand, the roll axis felt very realistic, but pitch was all over the place, it just wasn't smooth moving from pitch up to pitch down. Plus the lack of switches is really problematic. However it should be easy to modify the yoke as there are blanking holes for switches to go and the rear of the yoke itself is open.

[777simmer 117]

Hey cool, a PC Pilot reviewer :-)

Thx for your reply!

 

I read PC Pilot every month, these days on iPad.

Athough I did consider giving up on the magazine after the 777 review they did.

But I am still a faithfull reader.

Its a good magazin to see what is new for flighsimmers.

 

As to your VR review, I assume you tried the yoke on various airplanes?

(just making sure the pitch problem is not related to a certain aircraft addon).

And, did you use FSUIPC or something else to assign the control axis?

 

Inside the Yoke housing there should even be "electronic space" to plug in additional switches. I am still hoping someone actually plugs a trim toggle switch in there to see what happens. I mean after you plug in an extra switch, is that immediately recognized by FSX? Or only by FSUIPC? or only by software that I would have to write myself (I cant write software!)?

 

Thx again Jessica

[Jessica Bannister-Pearce 120]

Hi Rob,

 

The yoke's pitch problem was down to the grease they used. My office is often cooler than the other rooms and the grease just didn't soften enough to work effectively. Wight he heat on, it got better, but the yoke would still noticeably stick going from pitch up to pitch down.

 

Windows reads the yoke as a game pad with 32 buttons available so I'm guessing inside the case there should be away to add the various switches you'd like to add. I used fsuipc for fsx control calibration, and apart from needing to invert the pitch access, the yoke worked well. For XPX, well that was a different matter. The pitch axis refused to be calibrated in XPX. No matter what I tried, the axis remained red.

 

As a base for modding, the VR insight yoke is pretty good, as a stand alone unit, it needs more. On the plus side however, overall build quality is superb. It's built like a dreadnought and weighs about the same.

 

Best wishes,

 

Jess B

[777simmer 117]

Ok I see.

 

Well, a grease problem should be easy to fix.

If I ever buy that yoke I would have to open it up anyway to plug in some switches.

 

I dont use XP10 (yet) but how can a yoke that is correctly recognized in Windows not work in Xplane? That is weird.

 

Maybe VR support might have been able to help!?

Maybe they have a driver you need to install.

I mean it is weird that such an exspensive yoke does not come with a driver and is then wrongly identified as a game pad!

 

The fact that one needs FSUIPC to make the yoke work is not so good as PMDG recommends to NOT use FSUIPC (for their 777) for assigning control axis.

People who do anyway, have all kinds of problems they then need to fix.

Assigning buttons through FSUIPC is ok, but control axis should not be calibrated through FSUIPC with the 777PMDG.

It seems most problems are fixed in the mean time, but still....using FSXs own control interface is the better/safer way.

But that might not work with the VR yoke.

 

That would be my last question!

Does the VR yoke work without FSUIPC?

[Jessica Bannister-Pearce 120]

Hi Rob,

 

The XPX problem is probably solvable. I've heard of other control units that I have and work, not work on a friends system.

 

Yes the yoke should work fine without fsuipc. I just calibrate though that as a standard practice.

 

Best wishes

Jess B

[777simmer 117]

Thx a lot Jess :-)

 

Same here, allways used FSUIPC, untill recently with the PMDG777.

 

Best wishes back.

[N1125Y 22]

Any review on the new Flight Master Yoke-II ??? 

 

Happy new (Sim) year 

[N1125Y 22]

..any reviews on the new version of the Flight Master Yoke-II, would nice to have compression to the GoFlight Yoke   ???